A mind will wanderhither and yonwhen hands set tosome reg’lar task –here I am snippinga peck of runner beans,popping tails and topswhilst the big pot comesto a raring boiland the greased spideris smoking for corncake.

Woodsmoke and hot ironI follow right on backto Big Elk Branchand Miz Gaston teaching meto put food by:catsups and pickles and millionaire relish,sweating at the Home Comfortas we scalded peachesin August and slipped themfrom outta their bright skins,stirring apple butter in the kettleover a fire in the yard.I learnt it was a laborbut aftertimes a joy to see the jarsfilled red and yellowin that dirt-floor cellar, a treasure-roomwhere women held the key.

Sometimes as we rollpast hayfields or tobacco, field-hands under they hatsin the sun, or cotton busting whitefrom the knife-edge bollsand I recollectthe burn on my stooped back,the itch of hay dust, the fiery stingof the saddleback wormwhilst working the green corn,but too the cold water a-tricklingover moss at the springhouse, and birds as would flame upin the trees, and the mister’s orchardsweet both spring and fall.

I had my pallet thenand not much more – nothing I mought call mine, even my ownself, not like now when I havemy own placewith my bits and pieces, books, a pot of chamomileto take for my sleepless. Still, I do pine at timesfor the old place,knowing that outsidethe back door a mist be‘mongst the arms of the hillsand the first wrenbird calling clear.

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Valerie Nieman’s second poetry collection, Hotel Worthy, was published in 2015. She has held poetry and fiction fellowships from the NEA, North Carolina and West Virginia arts councils, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She has published three novels, the most recent being Blood Clay, winner of the Eric Hoffer Prize in General Fiction, and a collection of short stories, Fidelities. Nieman graduated from West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte. A former journalist, she teaches writing at North Carolina A&T State University and recently enjoyed a month of solo hiking in the Scottish Highlands.